Vanessa Bryant is PEOPLE Magazine’s cover story this week for their Women Changing the World Issue. Bryant was selected for the opportunities she creates for female athletes in honor of her husband Kobe Bryant and daughter Gianna Bryant, both of whom passed away in a plane crash last year.

Bryant recently talked with PEOPLE about her work and how she has been coping with the unimaginable loss over the last 14 months.

Bryant says that some days are harder than others and the pain is unbearable.

“I can’t say that I’m strong every day,” she tells PEOPLE. “I can’t say that there aren’t days when I feel like I can’t survive to the next.”

“This pain is unimaginable [but] you just have to get up and push forward,” she says. “Lying in bed crying isn’t going to change the fact that my family will never be the same again. But getting out of bed and pushing forward is going to make the day better for my girls and for me. So that’s what I do.”

On her better days, Bryant channels her energies into finishing her late husband’s creative projects at Granity Studios and she relaunched his charitable foundation, Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation, to provide opportunities to underserved athletes, according to reporting by Bossip.

While working to honor the family members she lost inspires her work, it is the family she still has to to care for that inspires her to keep going – her daughters–Natalia, 18, Bianka, 4, and 20-month-old Capri.

“My girls help me smile through the pain,” she says. “They give me strength…I want to make Kobe, Gigi, Natalia, Bianka and Capri proud.”